IBM Unleashes Powerful Mainframe “IBM Z” to Revolutionize Financial Cybersecurity

IBM, the renowned tech giant, has unveiled the latest advancement in their mainframe computer lineage: the IBM Z. This digital titan is claimed to be capable of processing an astounding 12 billion encrypted transactions each day, which is a staggering 18 times faster than its closest competitors.

This leap in processing power enables IBM Z to venture deeper into the realm of financial cybersecurity. Consolidating the functionality of multiple machines, the IBM Z offers an attractive proposition for financial institutions — a super-efficient, albeit expensive, solution to handle their massive transaction data.

The inception of this groundbreaking system is due to the unwarranted, escalating cyber threats looming over the financial sector. It is estimated that in 2016 alone, almost 4 billion financial records were compromised, which was a staggering rise of 556 percent compared to 2015. The severity of this issue is further underscored by the fact that of over 9 billion records stolen in the last five years, only about 4 percent were adequately encrypted.

According to IBM, approximately 150 potential clients have demonstrated interest in the IBM Z, signalling the tech’s promising reception. Various instant messaging services use encryption to protect their users’ privacy from unwarranted spying. The introduction of this technology into the financial sector could likely face resistance from the government, who assert their need to access financial records to monitor and curb the flow of funds for illicit purposes.

Ross Mauri, a general manager at IBM Z, in a recent statement explained that “The vast majority of stolen or leaked data today is in the open and easy to use because encryption has been very difficult and expensive to do at scale. We created a data protection engine for the cloud era to have a significant and immediate impact on global data security.” This development is described as IBM Z’s most significant overhaul in more than 15 years.

The IBM Z expands from the tech firm’s transaction machine that currently handles nearly 87 percent of all global card transactions. This equates to a colossal amount of nearly $8 trillion in payments annually, in addition to 29 billion ATM transactions and over 4billion passenger flights each year. In total, it is responsible for processing over 30 billion transactions daily.